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The top lines for the Peterborough Petes and Sarnia Sting decided Saturday's contest.

Sarnia's top line, led by Alex Galchenyuk's four-point masterpiece, accounted for all the Sting scoring in a 5-2 win in a game one could argue the Petes deserved a better fate, despite the three-goal margin.

A bad break for the Petes late in the second period gave Sarnia a 2-1 lead despite being outshot 15-2 to that point of the period and 27-14 overall by Peterborough. The Sting never relinquished that lead.

After earning 11 points in an 8-2 win over the Petes a week earlier, Sarnia's top trio – Galchenyuk, Charles Sarault and Reid Boucher – accounted for 10 points going head-to-head with the Petes top line of Alan Quine, Nick Ritchie and Francis Menard.

“We were good for 95% of the game,” said Petes' coach Mike Pelino. “When we weren't good was when we wanted to go on our own page and weren't willing to commit to doing what you have to do to be successful, especially when you identify who you're out there against. When you see that you're out there against Galchenyuk, Sarault and Boucher you have to understand you have to work that much harder to make sure they don't create something offensively.”

When you rank 19 of 20 in goals for, Pelino said, the entire team has to commit to a defensive concept for an entire 60 minutes.

“We have to commit to playing every shift as hard as we can all the way back into our own end,” he said. “We can't hope. We can't try to cheat and hope we're going to get that breakaway goal.”

After coming out of the first period tied 1-1, the Petes completely dominated Sarnia in the second until Galchenyuk's centring pass from the corner hit Brandon Devlin's skate and deflected over Michael Giugovaz's shoulder for a Sting lead with 2:00 left in the period.

After falling behind 3-1 on Boucher's first of two goals, the Petes battled back within one as Jonatan Tanus finished a scramble in front of J.P. Anderson with 3:03 left in the third. Again fortune went against the Petes 62 seconds later as Slater Koekkoek was cross checked into the boards by Sarault, with no penalty, leading to Boucher restoring the two-goal lead. Galchenyuk capped a hat truck into an empty net.

“It was clearly a penalty and I was shocked it wasn't called,” said Pelino. “To boot, they score.”

Sarnia, who were short-handed for eight minutes in the second, wasn't credited with a shot on goal in the period until the final four minutes but emerged with the lead off a lucky bounce. Those are bounces the Petes don't seem to get, said Devlin.

“Sooner or later they will start going in for us. We just have to keep putting the puck on net,” Devlin said. “We're getting a lot of shots and we just can't seem to find a way to bury them. We're getting great chances.”

Quine had the Petes' first goal one-timing Devlin's pass on a five-on-three advantage with 2:01 left in the first. Quine caused Sarnia's first goal has his drop pass in his own end was picked off by Galchenyuk who swung into the slot and snapped the puck between Giugovaz's pads.

Galchenyuk said regardless of how the second period went, his club had confidence it would find its way and credited Anderson for getting them through some tough spots.

“We're a character team,” said Galchenyuk. “We just have to (make good) on our chances and score on the opportunities we have. Maybe, we can make simpler plays, we sometimes try to do too much.”

Galchenyuk expected the Petes to come hard to try to make up for the lopsided loss a week earlier.

“We were expecting that and we were ready for that. I'm proud of our guys that we pulled out the win,” he said.